Politics In Sports: IPL Fixing Scandal, Colossal Greed And BCCI!

By -


On his way back home yesterday from a five-day Japan-Thailand visit the Prime Minister of India, when asked to comment on the IPL Spot Fixing Scandal, said that politics should not be mixed with sports. And exactly the contrary is happening since yesterday. This time the politicking in sports is not perpetrated by politicians, but by the officials of the prime sports body, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) including its tainted Chief N Srinivasan whose colossal greed has been demonstrated graphically over the last few days in his desperate bid to stick to his position of power, money and clout. 

Late last night the No.2 and No.3 of BCCI had tendered their resignations expressing deep hurt over the raging IPL Spot Fixing scandal that has brought a bad name to the Board. They are Sanjay Jagdale, the Secretary of the BCCI, and the Treasurer Ajay Shirke who had been the very first from the BCCI to break the silence over the issue. Their action further increased the already mounting pressure on N Srinivasan to resign. Reports were rife that resignations of the five Vice Presidents including the BJP Leader of Opposition in the upper house of the Indian Parliament, Arun Jaitley, Shivlal Yadav, Niranjan Shah, and IPL Chairman cum Congress Minister Rajeev Shukla would be coming anytime. In fact, Arun Jaitley today made it clear that something huge should be expected in the next twenty four hours. Just after that an emergency meeting of the BCCI working committee was announced to be held tomorrow in Chennai. With the richest cricket Board of the world on the verge of a collapse for the first time in history the lobbying and politics started.

The BCCI working committee has 31 members including the President Narayanswamy Srinivasan. For ousting the President three-fourth of the members, that is 24, must vote favorably. Srinivasan reportedly has the support of 8 members and this has provided him the lobbying and politicking plank. This has made him set four ridiculous conditions for a possible resignation tomorrow—1. He must still be allowed to represent India at the ICC (see he still wants to represent ‘India’!), 2. No outsider to be allowed to become the interim President (because the name of former BCCI boss Shashank Manohar was in circulation), 3. He must be allowed to elect his Secretary and Treasurer and 4. Sanjay Jagdale and Ajay Shirke cannot come back to BCCI. Every condition reeks of arrogance, corruption, power-craziness and colossal greed. Reports say that the BCCI is not going to accept these conditions. However, it must first somehow ensure the required support to oust its Chief.

On this Black Friday for Indian Cricket and BCCI there were other happenings too. The police custody of Gurunath Meiyappan and Vindo Dara Singh along with two bookies was extended to 3rd of June by a Mumbai court. Mumbai Police has asked for the police custody of the super bookie Ashwini Aggarwal alias Tinku Mandi arrested by Delhi Police earlier and accordingly Tinku Mandi was brought to the crime branch of Mumbai Police yesterday for questioning. The Chennai connection Victor alias Vikram Aggarwal was also brought to Mumbai for questioning his link to Gurunath. While a Mumbai court today gave police custody to Tinku Mandi till 6th of June, Victor was yet to be arrested by Mumbai Police.

Sunday tomorrow is going to be another huge day for the BCCI and the IPL Spot Fixing Scandal. And of course, for Indian Cricket.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Raghu Krishna: Adieu!

By -
Image
The man in the blue suit He was more of a dear friend than a boss. Raghu Krishna , the former Chief Producer of Films Division, Mumbai and Director of MIFF (Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films) for 2004 and 2006 versions, passed away today following a brain stroke and coma. I first knew him as a film director in Films Division, Mumbai. As we became close we started playing table tennis. He was an attacking player specializing in smashes. Once I was defeated by a colleague and next game Raghu defeated him. Later, Raghu came over to my room for a fag and told me proudly, ‘I wanted to beat him because he beat you!’ I sensed his love for me instantly. Raghu appeared for an interview for the top post and finally got selected. He joined as Chief Producer in January 2004 and immediately took charge of MIFF 2004 as Festival Director. Till MIFF 2006 I worked under him and enjoyed every bit of it. He showed tremendous faith in me in the role of
Read more

Local Instability!

By -
Image
The two had not been in a stable state since the outbreak of the pandemic or positively longer perhaps. The problem was they had always been extremely close to each other like next door neighbors; however, the problem was exacerbated by their close physical proximity. Well, neighbors can be next door, but they have separate entrances and independent four-wall habitable units. In this case of the two there was no such personal space, they are almost joined together with separation impossible unless in the extreme case of physical elimination; no social distancing possible even if they wanted which in fact they did want on many occasions. But they had been under a mortal dread of a new entity forcing in its entry if one of them were eliminated. This situation exists even now.   They need each other very frequently on jobs that they have to perform together. For those kinds of jobs they indeed cooperate as much as each one is personally capable of. However, perhaps because of the exis
Read more

The Pandemic-Driven Desperation Is Worrying!

By -
Image
The two-year long COVID-19 pandemic (no signal that it’s ended) has jolted the Indian economy almost out of its roots, heightened by the fact that the economy had been under a lot of strain for at least two years prior the outbreak. The normal demand-supply equation has gone bizarre—the supply chain not yet being able to resume its normal course, with some of the key sectors suffering maximum damage, in light of insufficient demand as the common people now want to hold on to their savings fearing an uncertain future. Normally, with less demand and normal supply the prices should fall and this has led many experts to expect a recession soon or already in the process. However, prices only kept on rising, crossing a whopping level of 7% in the recent quarter that’s made the Reserve Bank of India increase the Repo rate twice in two weeks. With some knowledge of economics I feel that while the customers are not spending their money enough the suppliers not still getting the normal booming t
Read more

Kamalananda Bhattacharyya: Life and Works. And His Beautiful Songs!

By -
Image
Respectful tributes to my grandfather whom I never met in this life, but his music kept him alive in me all my life. January 4, 1951. Assam lost a great poet, composer-lyricist, playwright, actor and freedom fighter Bauli Kavi Kamalananda Bhattacharyya. On his 61 st death anniversary he is remembered fondly by Assam’s intelligentsia, artistes and music lovers. Born in 1894 at Nagaon, Kamalananda Bhattacharyya did not have an easy life. Brought up in a musical ambience he lost his father at a tender age of 15 and being the eldest son the full burden of seven brothers and family fell on him. Fighting against odds he went to Cotton College at Guwahati and passed the pre-university course. But he had to come back home before pursuing higher studies. Again he tried for graduation and went to Calcutta, but could not complete and had to join a secondary school as a teacher back home to meet the growing domestic needs. But even that was not for long. Sensitive and a patriot at heart,
Read more

KK Demise: Bollywood Vs Regional!

By -
Image
There was an ugly kind of mad expression just the day before the Kolkata concert of the famous Bollywood playback singer Krishnakumar Kunnath (KK) who succumbed to a heart attack immediately after that fateful concert, held in a jammed auditorium in extreme humid heat conditions. Due to the lack of space we couldn’t mention it and discuss about this particular madness, obviously a pandemic-induced one to a large extent, in our earlier piece . It came from a well-known Bangla artiste-singer in the form of an enraged expression. He questioned as to who is KK indeed, that why should there be so much craze for such Bollywood singers like him and that there are more talented singers than him available locally in Bengal. No doubt, his comments were condemned in all quarters including the social media. The artiste himself apologized for his behavior and later expressed his terrible shock over the tragedy that followed the concert.   However, this kind of ugly conduct cannot be wished away
Read more

Maharashtra Political Thriller: A Shiv Sena without the Thackerays?

By -
Image
We’ve been liberally treated with political thrillers like that is happening in Maharashtra at the moment across the country since the last few years, thanks to the aggressive power-politics of the national ruling dispensation (BJP) which fittingly matches its aggressive Hindutva nationalism. However, the present game has been inevitable since the year 2019 when Shiv Sena (SS) parted ways with the BJP after jointly fighting and winning the assembly elections, and after a landslide victory for the alliance in 2014, on the CM post issue, and forming a coalition government Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (Maharashtra Development Front or MVA) with the Congress and the nationalist Congress (NCP). For the last two and half years the state BJP has been a grumpy lot, alleging a great betrayal by the SS and wanting desperately to avenge it; in fact, they’d tried at least three times to derail the coalition so far. This last one, even though the party has continued to be in denial about any involvemen
Read more

IPL Looming over India’s International Cricket?

By -
Image
No doubt, we cannot question the fundamental rights of people, particularly the ebullient young generation, of loving short and sweet but highly entertaining cricket games like movies. Add to it the digital revolution taking place all over the world as well as in India, even penetrating the rural areas thanks to the initiatives of the government. Now everyone, young or older, wants to enjoy whatever they love on their mobiles or tabs or laptops from wherever they happen to be. For what do you think the streaming platforms are becoming so popular? The digital experience is always unique, as it is very personal, independent and not location-dependent as we’ve already mentioned. In such a scenario what the Indian Premiere League (IPL) has achieved in its 3-day e-auction for TV and Digital broadcasting rights is mindboggling indeed, but not entirely unexpected. The four packages of media rights, A, B, C and D, fetched the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) a record-breaking figur
Read more